At Caromble.com I posted recently some of the later conceptart. Those are very close to the style we’re going for. We’ve gotten very positive reactions so far.
Again via Seth’s blog I found this article about a guy who describes his way to become US champion at memorizing. Amazingly, he just started as journalist wanting to find out how those guys manage these awesome memory feats.
It’s not only interesting for this specific topic – but his general ideas how to get better at something blew my mind.
This led me also to one of Richard Hamming’s talks, called “You and Your Research” – which is actually not much about research. It’s a very inspiring insight into what makes you productive – and reaffirming what the other article said: It is mostly not some magical talent that defines what we become, but more the drive and circumstances (although maybe not what you expect they should be).
And relating to the memorization: There is this blog by Ed Cooke, a British memorizer. He is describing lots of neat little tricks for remembering everyday things. Like you should imagine your keys being a little weird monster and you’ll never forget where you put it. But again, the whole thing generalizes very nicely for broader skills.
I think this will spawn some further posts – it’s just too many inspiring reads this has led to. But I’ll close with some amazing art by Brian Dettmer. He cut out parts of out-of-date encyclopedias, and glued the pages together in new shapes… he did not add anything, just cutting. …talk about drive and dedication.
I am now going to hang up my latest painting into the Yoga lab Displays. An scan is coming later this week.
memory palace… yeh that’s it.. :) kindof what I meant in my universe idea..
The more stuff you link to something the easier it becomes to access, lest it take over! :D
Toilets are a great place to think, simply because very often all you can do there is think, thus you train yourself to think on the toilet, I think..
Nice article, I’ll check out the links tonight!
I’ve been a bit obsessed about learning how the brain works, what makes you tick and how you can learn and improve. There’s quite a lot of info about it.
One thing that I’ve heard before is the connecting things you have to remember to something outrageous. And creating a visual memory of it. There was one method of remembering many things, where you choose to recreate, in your head, a path you walk across very often. (walking to the studio, to the shop etc). And on certain parts on that path you change you memory of those area’s to include things you want to remember. For example, remembering to bring butter, creating a scene where the whole street is flowing with butter, and taking everything with it in a stream of butter. It worked for me, but I didn’t remember to practise it enough :).
A while ago I listend to an audio book called “Accelerated learning techniques” by Brain Tracy. Very American in a way, and focussed on becoming rich fast, but beneath the surface is a lot of interesting information. A lot about how the school system fails in not supplying the right learning environment. This one let me to the Theory of multiple intelligences (1983) by Howard Gardner. Which I found facinating and much more complete then our current socially accepted model.
Another thing from the audio book is knowing how you learn. Auditive, visual or physically. And noting that a little bit of stress will shut down a part of your brain.
An interesting 3 part documentary about the brain and learning is called My Brilliant Brain.
http://www.sprword.com/videos/mybrilliantbrain/
That let me to a lecture about relearning learning from John Seely Brown about the way MIT intergrates new theories of learning in their system.
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/419
I had more, but I forgot. I might add them if I remember them :).
Cheers,
David
Wanja: I think the memory palace is simpler than your universe idea. It is trying to use the fact that our mammal brains are optimized for remembering landscapes (as opposed to numbers/words).
The toilet thing is true heh, I’m thinking that’s why it is good that I got a studio – just another place putting me in another mindset. Not like home where I eat sleep, play and whatever. (Here hoping it soon gets warmer so I can use it really).
David: Thanks for the links – I’ll check them out. Yeah, the “outrageous” thing is what the key-trick is about. If you imagine your keys at monster, you’ll never forget that it’s on the kitchen table – it’s just too odd to forget.
My brother also tried the butter-path idea you describe. He just said that he then always bought butter once he remembered that, even if he didn’t need to :D
What they don’t describe in the article is how to “flush” the memory palace. I’m curious how to get the butter out of there again.
The guy I wrote in the post before about – who has the record of remembering PI by going through a landscape – just held a TED talk. That’s gonna be interesting. http://optimnemblog.blogspot.com/
What you could also find relating to how to improve is the Dreyfus Model of Skill acquisition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition
I think it kinda explained to me some things – like why some training at our company didn’t go too well (blame goes on me here :)).